A bit off the topic perhaps, but since you haven't got the rings yet, perhaps you should go get the Osymetric rings instead. I am pretty sure Team GB got their biomechanical science right first before they got the Team Sky riders to use it, so I will believe that they will provide more benefit than Q-rings, which was shown to be rather ineffective in a study comparison between non-circular rings.

I was indeed thinking about getting the Osymetric rings at first. But i have read quite a few reports that they are one step further than Rotor, thus requiring more adaptation. Since i've never used oval rings, i dediced to start with Rotor. If they really give extra value, i might switch to Osymetric.

I ride with a PowerTap for several years so if the Rotor rings give me something extra, i should see it in my tests... Let's see what that gives

I made a good deal on a 3D crank + 53/39 Aero rings. I will use this for the first week on my training/racing bike (swapping the crank for each race). If i decide to go through, the 3D crank will replace my DA7900 crank. I will then order an extra set of rings for my DA7800 on the training bike.

I'll keep you posted on the results with it. I have a race on saturday so i will probably mount them somewhere next week.

I gotta say that I hade some serious soreness in some new musclegroups the first couple of weeks. And that's perfectly normal as you do start using some other muscles more than earlier, and these need some time to develop, so it's not just a mental aspect, it's a physical one aswell. And this takes way more than 10 minutes.

There is no way ou are even close to getting the full advantage before you let these "new" muscles develop and grow a bit stronger.

Studies show this to be false- the Q-rings do not alter firing rates of muscles unless you rotate between the most extreme orientations. If you feel increased soreness its actually bad and generally indicates an unfavourable increase in static/dynamic loading.

Here is a fun fact for you. I suffered pretty badly from 'jumpers knee' earlier this year. Didn't matter how I rode, nor if mainly on the small or the big chainring. Changed the small ring to Q-ring as I had it laying around and remember reading somewhere that they can relieve some types of knee problems. Said and done, keeping mainly in small chainring my jumpers knee was gone over night! I'd har it for months... Changed the big ring after a few weeks and now I can ride that gear without killing my knee too...

A bit off the topic perhaps, but since you haven't got the rings yet, perhaps you should go get the Osymetric rings instead. I am pretty sure Team GB got their biomechanical science right first before they got the Team Sky riders to use it, so I will believe that they will provide more benefit than Q-rings, which was shown to be rather ineffective in a study comparison between non-circular rings.

Wiggins was using O'Symmetric rings before he joined Sky and I've never seen anything hinting at that Team GB had anything to do with Wiggins choice.

BoerLowie, please make sure you make some specific testing over a widish range of times. Maybe 5sec, 10sec, 1min, 5min, 20min or so.

_________________"Nothing compares to the simple pleasures of a bike ride," said John F. Kennedy, a man who had the pleasure of Marilyn Monroe.

I gotta say that I hade some serious soreness in some new musclegroups the first couple of weeks. And that's perfectly normal as you do start using some other muscles more than earlier, and these need some time to develop, so it's not just a mental aspect, it's a physical one aswell. And this takes way more than 10 minutes.

There is no way ou are even close to getting the full advantage before you let these "new" muscles develop and grow a bit stronger.

Studies show this to be false- the Q-rings do not alter firing rates of muscles unless you rotate between the most extreme orientations. If you feel increased soreness its actually bad and generally indicates an unfavourable increase in static/dynamic loading.

Here is a fun fact for you. I suffered pretty badly from 'jumpers knee' earlier this year. Didn't matter how I rode, nor if mainly on the small or the big chainring. Changed the small ring to Q-ring as I had it laying around and remember reading somewhere that they can relieve some types of knee problems. Said and done, keeping mainly in small chainring my jumpers knee was gone over night! I'd har it for months... Changed the big ring after a few weeks and now I can ride that gear without killing my knee too...

It changes which muscles you use. Period.

Your fit must suck then, because every non-rotor funded study has found otherwise. The only thing that can really change firing patterns is overall position on the bike. The people that I have found that claim they reduce muscle fatigue usually have calve fatigue from their seats being too high or too far back, people with hamstring fatigue being the same. Altering the ring position from 3 to 4 isn't enough to offset the STA and really change where you are relative to leverage points in the pedal stroke. Glad you like them, but the data just isn't there to support them.

I have used both Rotor and O-Sys. I never noticed the Rotor rings. They were neither good nor bad- no real tangible results. They took about 30 minutes to adapt to and about 30 minutes to go back to round rings. I have hundreds of power files and dozens of tests for both round and Q-Rings and there were no considerable differences in any metric.

This new study is laughably flawed in so many ways, but the following stand out:-"In order to facilitate compliance with this request, subjects were also provided with a training journal to record mileage and average speed of their training rides." So if I train at 20mph, but up a 6% grade and another participant trains at 20mph but up a 1% grade is it the same? Or how about I set my computrainer to 20mph with drafting turned off and put out 300w for an hour and another subject does the same but with drafting on and puts out 280w? This is where the shoddy controls start.

- No round control group, just a switch to round rings after the last test. So there's no way to determine if the subjects improved simply from training and adapting to the same test protocol or if the rings were what made the difference. The length of the study is more than long enough to see these kind of improvements simply from just riding.

-They chose a 1km TT, which is pretty stupid IMO. This kind of test greatly depends on AWC, which is not that trainable. It would make much more sense to choose a longer test duration.

-"There was no significant interaction found between week/chainring type and power (p = 0.998). Although slight differences can be seen during each workstage (i.e., 150, 180, 210, 240, 270, 300 watts), these data display increases that are generally indicative of an increase in exercise workloads. Oxygen consumption was not significantly different when comparing the final week of testing (i.e., week 5 Post-test) to the initial week of testing (i.e., week 0) on circular chainrings (p = 0.11) (see Table 5)."

-"No main effect was observed for week/chainring type for measured blood lactate concentration (p =0.86). There was a main effect for power (p < 0.05), however, the increases in blood lactate correspond to the increases in workload during the graded exercise test (see Table . There was no interaction between week/chainring type and power (p = 0.99)."

So really, nothing significant was gleaned from this study, which is weird because they claim otherwise in the summary.

O-Sys took about 5-7 days to get the feel for. They are way different, but once I did adapt I felt as if they did everything that Rotor rings are supposed to do. The only reason I ditched them was because they don't make them for MTBs and going back and forth would be too much effort.

I will say that they're not for everyone though. The O Sys rings seem to benefit riders with more muscular strength/endurance as they do noticeably increase time spent in the power phase of the stroke. You will notice a weird resistance affect where you suddenly slow your cadence from 1 to 5 o clock in the stroke and then it rapidly spins around, but you get used to that. Riders who have a higher cadence and tend to rely more on aerobic endurance might not see much of a benefit from the rings.

KWalker, did you actually DO the ´brain training´, or did you just think after 30min -"Yep, I've got the hang of this, no need to follow those instructions..." and then you make claims based on that? That seems rather presumptuous of you...

Testamonials claiming that the Q-rings helped with knee problems, are plentiful on the web. But I guess you know all about how to bikefit others even just from reading a couple of posts on an online forum, so they must all be wrong - and you are right, ofcourse

KWalker, did you actually DO the ´brain training´, or did you just think after 30min -"Yep, I've got the hang of this, no need to follow those instructions..." and then you make claims based on that? That seems rather presumptuous of you...

Testamonials claiming that the Q-rings helped with knee problems, are plentiful on the web. But I guess you know all about how to bikefit others even just from reading a couple of posts on an online forum, so they must all be wrong - and you are right, ofcourse

I followed Rotor's instructions precisely although anecdotal evidence from everyone I know that's tried them is in line with what I found- its a pretty short adaptation. Testimonials without data mean nothing especially considering how many riders have such poor bike fit, flexibility, economy, and wellness.

Also, body position over the bike is incredibly important for making either ring work. I feel that most people probably take so long to adapt because they start out with an inefficient position and then switch to a different mounting position because of this. The problem is that if your position is even off by 1cm fore or aft the Rotor's can often not fully compensate from this based on the data the studies show, but then again everyone that has ever gotten any type of bike fit will claim that their fit is ideal and this is b/s.

FWIW I know probably about 3-4 dozen people who have tried these and I sold them to quite a few people when I worked at a shop. Most people kept them on, but didn't claim that they did anything other than feel good for whatever reason. The people I know that actually have enough power data to make a comparison found no significant correlations with or without them. The few I know that really love them tend to be the type that would be well-suited for O Sys, but haven't tried them yet. Of that group, 9 out of the 11 riders are elite level cross and MTB racers and the only thing keeping them off of O Sys is that they don't make rings for their other bikes.

I'm not saying non-round rings don't work, I'm saying that Rotor rings are a gimmick and not different enough to do what they claim. Get sore, don't get sore, whatever, but the only sound mechanical testing illustrates that they are not designed in a way that is conducive to realizing their mechanical benefits.

Sure, as per usual both sides have anecdotal evidence, but only sides anecdotes count, if any. And both sides have multiple fairly accurate tests with data from various machines and meassuring equipment. But only one sides data is valid, while the other parts data is just daft and there to support a PR campaign.

Tell me, KWalker, is this your first visit to the world wide web? Or have you just never seen this pattern before?

Did you not read that I have hundreds of power files and multiple tests to compare? Most of the elite level riders I know that have them do as well. I don't have their files to post on here neither can I just upload an amalgam of the graphs to WW, but no one that has actually crunched the data has noticed any quantitative trends.

Anyways, I'm glad you like them. Like anything in cycling its great to be able to justify spending hundreds of dollars on something.

I think you're missing the big point of a smoother pedalling style, when you're just looking a power figures. I think you're missing the point of how they feel to pedal. I think you've already made up your mind.

No, I'm not missing that point, but its erroneous. Nothing about pedaling smoothness necessarily increases efficiency, performance, or power. That's leftover forklore from before one could actually analyze such variables in a meaningful way. It won't matter if you think your pedaling is nice if you can still only crank out 3 w/kg up a hill and everyone is cranking out 4. But if you want to say that its worth $250 to feel a meaningless sensation then go for it, but if a rider likes the way Q-Rings feel then why not go O-Sys since its the same feeling but more exaggerated and with all of the promised gains?

Kwalker - Your posts are hillarious! I have to agree that if your looking at Qrings from a power perspective then you truly have missed the boat. I jumped on Qrings for pedal feeling and I must say that pedal feeling is great. Now I have no library of massive files for documentation but I do FEEL that because my pedal stroke is smoother, I can go longer, barely cramp now, I can train harder to build more watts and power, and all because my pedal stroke feels smoother! But really Qrings aren't for everyone but it's worth it in my opinion to give it a try if you can afford too. It may or may not work. Just my 2cents tho!

I really have to support DMF on this one. I thoroughly destroyed my knee in February which put me off the bike for about 5 months. I switched to Q-Rings for the supposed decrease in pressure on the knees and I can actually ride now! There were plenty of other changes to go along with the Q-Rings, but i think they play their part and they definitely feel like they are working different muscle groups, specifically the inner thigh, and therefore helping the imbalance I supposedly had before. I think anyone switching to Q-Rings solely for performance gains will likely be disappointed, there is no magic to them. I switched with the hope of being able to ride without being in agony, and they seem to be part of what made that happen, and as Brandon said they feel smooth pedal stroke wise. My only comment on performance is that I'm out of shape and can maintain higher speeds on the flat on my own than when I was in good shape, go figure. I do think they are far too expensive, however.

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